Gen X, Y or Z? British Columbia’s Demographic Breakdown

We often come across the terms such as Millennial, Gen X, Baby Boomers, Gen Y and Gen Z in the news, read about future trends or hear business leaders talk about their future customer base. What do these age groups really mean?

Which age pool is important for your business? And how do you incorporate different marketing tools and mediums for that base? We became curious about British Columbia’s demographics and conducted some research to help answer these questions. The following graph, made with data from BC Stats, shows the age composition of British Columbia broken down into 5 years age range. The vertical axis shows what percentage of the total population falls within a specific age range. For example, in 2010 the 45-49 year-olds made up about 8% of the total BC population. The same age group is estimated to reduce to 6.4% of the total population by 2020.

There are age variations within the province as well. The graph below shows the same data for Vancouver. The same age group mentioned above i.e. 45-49 year-olds are 8% of total population in 2010 much like the overall province data. They are also projected to reduce in percentage to 6.6% keeping up with the aggregate data trend. However, the largest age group at 10.5% of total population in Vancouver in 2010 is the 25-29 year-olds. This is expected to change with 25-29 year-olds slightly reducing to 9.3% in 2020 and 20-34 year-olds increasing from 9.8% in 2016 to 10.3% in 2020.

So when you hear or read about global or even regional age trends and tips for marketing, make sure those tie in with the demographic trends that exist within British Columbia, or your local area.